Accomac, Virginia<\/h3>
Though Accomack County was established as one of Virginia's eight original shires in 1634, the government was situated in the southern part of the Eastern Shore near Eastville until the division of the shore into two counties (Northampton and Accomack) in 1663.[7] During this era, religious diversity began in the area, as Presbyterian Francis Makemie received a plantation nearby which he used as a base for his mercantile and missionary journeys, and where he died at age 50 a few years after winning a New York court case brought against his preaching (as the Scots-Irish emigrant to Maryland's Eastern Shore counties produced a preaching license from Barbados). Early Baptist Elijah Baker (Baptist) also arrived near Accomac before the American Revolutionary War, and was likewise imprisoned for unauthorized preaching, but eventually also had that case dismissed.\n<\/p>
After the creation of the present-day Accomack County, the court convened alternatively at Pungoteague and Onancock until the 1690s when it shifted to the house of John Cole at the site that later became the town of Accomac, then known by the name Matompkin. A brick courthouse was built in 1756 and the surrounding settlement became known as Accomack Courthouse.[8] On December 7, 1786, Richard Drummond, Gilbert Poiley, John McLean, Edward Kerr, Catherine Scott, Patience Robertson, and William Berkeley petitioned the Virginia House of Delegates for the creation of an incorporated town at Accomack Courthouse.[9] Their petition was granted and the House of Delegates passed an \"Act to establish a Town at the Courthouse of the county of Accomack...by the name of Drummond,\" named in honor of the chief landholder in the new town.[10] Many of the town's historic houses, churches, and other buildings were constructed between the last decade of the eighteenth century and first half of the nineteenth century, representing vernacular interpretations of late Georgian, Federal, and Greek Revival architectural styles, as the town prospered as the terminus of a ferry across Chesapeake Bay. The modern ferry only travels between nearby Onancock, Virginia and Tangier Island.\n<\/p>
During the American Civil War, the Union Army occupied the Eastern Shore to cut supply lines to the south and prevent the Confederate Army from using the shore as a staging area to attack the north through Maryland.[11] Union General Henry H. Lockwood commanded the occupying forces and established a headquarters in the rectory of St. James Episcopal Church (then home to town physician Dr. Peter F. Browne).[12] Other than damages to the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches which were used by the army for stables and housing, Drummondtown escaped the war with little damage.\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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